1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a knee airbag device that is inflated and deployed to restrain knees of an occupant when a vehicle has a collision, and also relates to a method of connecting the knee airbag device.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, various knee airbag devices have been proposed to protect knees of an occupant. For example, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-037003 (JP-A-2002-037003) describes a knee airbag device in which an airbag module is disposed inside a column cover that covers a steering column.
Generally, a steering lock is attached to the steering column above an airbag module in a manner such that the steering lock is housed in the column cover, and the steering lock overlaps with the airbag module when viewed from above the steering column. Therefore, when the airbag module is connected to the steering column, to fit nuts to bolts in a direction from above the steering column, the airbag module needs to be connected to the steering column before the steering lock is fitted to the steering column. This imposes a restriction on the fitting procedure, and makes the fitting operation complicated.
Furthermore, once the steering lock is fitted to the steering column, it is not possible to remove the airbag module from the steering column (because there is no enough space to place tools in). Therefore, for example, when the airbag module needs to be removed in order to check the airbag module, the entire steering column needs to be removed from the vehicle body, and thus, a large-scale operation is required.
When the airbag module is connected to the steering column, the airbag module is housed in the column lower cover, and therefore the airbag module and the column lower cover closely relate to each other in the fitting operation. Therefore, if it is difficult to connect the airbag module to the steering column due to the configuration, it tends to be difficult to fix the column lower cover, which houses the airbag module, below the steering column.